Vault of Horror #18

In "Sink-Hole!", the Vault-Keeper introduces a chilling tale of deception and desperation, where a lonely woman’s mail-order marriage unravels into a deadly secret. After marrying Aldous Barstow, she quickly turns her affections to Rick Hudson, the new health inspector, and kills her husband, dumping his body in their well. When she learns Hudson is married and leaving town, her hopes shatter—only to face a horrifying truth when she reaches for water from the very well she used to hide her crime.

Dr. Harold Johnstone, once a celebrated physician, faces ruin after a car accident costs him his hand—end of career, or so he thinks. Inspired by a medical journal, he devises a chilling plan to replace his lost limb by taking one from a drunk, with devastating consequences. The Crypt-Keeper watches from the shadows as the doctor’s ambition spirals into something far darker.

Ken Anders visits a strange costume shop on a whim, where the shopkeeper hands him a mask and outfit meant to reveal his true self—a rotting corpse. Though his fiancée refuses to attend the party with him, he goes anyway, drawn to a mysterious woman dressed as a vampire. When they retreat to the garden, he uncovers her secret, but the truth takes a far darker turn than he expected.

In a town where fatness is the norm, a mysterious doctor named Perdo arrives with a miracle cure: a weight-loss capsule that works too well. Four willing patients slim down overnight—only to die in grotesque, starvation-like deaths. Six months later, Perdo returns in disguise, fleeing a mob and seeking refuge in the mausoleum of one of his victims—only to confront a monstrous truth buried beneath the earth: a giant tapeworm that may have been the real killer all along.